"Of what a strange nature is knowledge!": Hartleian
Psychology and the Creature's Arrested Moral Sense in Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein

Sue Weaver Schopf

In Romanticism Past and Present 5 (1981): 33-52.

{33} Studies of Frankenstein have often emphasized Mary Shelley's wide-ranging
awareness of contemporary social and intellectual issues and
developments in her work, as demonstrated most especially by her
debts to such authors as Locke, Condillac, Diderot, Buffon, Rousseau, Milton, Ovid, Dr. Darwin, Sir Humphry Davy, William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft.1 Discussion of
the influence of one other important author has not been
forthcoming, however, a fact all the more surprising when we
realize that he appears to have provided Mary Shelley with the
source for a substantial portion of Frankenstein's
epistemological foundation. That author is David Hartley, who is
responsible for Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty, and
His Expectations (1749).2

The assertion of Hartley's influence raises several difficult
questions. First, no references to Hartley or to the
Observations on Man are to be found either in Mrs.
Shelley's Journal3 or in her letters,4 works
traditionally consulted for documentation of the reading that
influenced the creation of Frankenstein. Did Mary
Shelley read a work whose powerful effects are not noted in
these usually dependable sources? Perhaps -- we should remember
that she did not begin keeping her journal until July 1814, and that her
journal for 1816 has
been lost. It is therefore possible that she read Hartley prior
to 1814 or during 1816 and that we simply have no record of
it.

Since the argument here advances the premise of direct
influence, and since no available journal entry or epistolary
reference appears to support such a premise, the temptation
arises to sidestep the issue by suggesting that Mary Shelley was
influenced by Hartley's theories indirectly, say, through
the agency of her father -- William Godwin. Godwin admired
Hartley's ingenious amalgamation of the concepts of
sensationism, benevolence, necessity, and meliorism. Political Justice is
occasionally a forum for some of Hartley's ideas. And several
of Godwin's essays in the Enquirer are concerned with the
same epistemological questions with which Hartley dealt. No
doubt Godwin {34} spoke of Hartley to his daughter, as he spoke
to her of other authors whose ideas he espoused. But even if
Godwin did not, he owned the copies of Hartley that his daughter
may have read. Godwin owned two different editions of Hartley's
Observations -- the original edition of 1749 and the abridged
Priestley edition of 1775 -- both of which
his daughter might have perused.5 Further, it is known that Mary
Shelley was familiar with Godwin's Caleb Williams, on
which she modelled a good deal of Frankenstein. Caleb
Williams is noteworthy in part for its striking
psychological studies, energized in part by Hartleian concepts,
of Barnabas Tyrrel, Caleb Williams, and Ferdinando Falkland.
Could Mary Shelley have acquired her knowledge of Hartley's
theories from a careful reading of her father's works? Probably
not. While the works of Godwin cited above are obviously
steeped in associational psychology, they are so only in a
general way; moreover, they are colored by Godwin's own ideas
about the forces which influence the formation of character.
Godwin never resorts to a step-by-step articulation of that
process in strictly Hartleian language; he absorbed Hartley's
basic theories, but from the outset, in Book I of Political Justice, he
undertakes to bring them into conformity with his own ideas. In
the introduction to his edition of Political Justice, F.
E. L. Priestley seconds the notion of Godwin's adapting
Hartley's ideas to his own ends:

The part played by association in Godwin's psychology is far
less important than is often supposed, and his debt to Hartley
is not great. . . . Hartley's doctrine of association,
with its alphabetical formulae, finds no place in Political
Justice; nor will the reader find any sign of Hartley's
hierarchy of Sensation, Imagination, Ambition, Self-lnterest,
Sympathy, Theopathy, and the Moral Sense, or of the five
'grateful' and five 'ungrateful' passions.6

The same can be said for Caleb Williams. Mary Shelley
could have derived an understanding of the general principles of
associationism, sensationism, and benevolence, and their roles
in the formation of character from her father's works; but
Godwin's works more nearly represent a casebook of liberal English empiricism and
Godwinian necessitarianism than a repository of Hartleian
theory.

If Mary Shelley did not learn the details of Hartley's system
from reading Godwin's works, might she have acquired such
knowledge in some more purely "accidental" way? That is, might
she not have perceived the essentials of Hartleian psychology as
a vital part of the zeitgeist from 1797-1817, her first two
decades, which culminated with the writing of
Frankenstein? The 0bservations was first
published in 1749.
In 1772, the
Reverend Herman A. Pistorius published in Rostock and Leipzig a
commentary on the second part of the Observations. In 1775, Joseph Priestley published
a condensed version of the {35} Observations, omitting
from it most of Hartley's religious hypotheses as well as his
theories concerning "vibratiuncles." The Pistorius commentary
was translated and appended to the second edition published by
Joseph Johnson -- Godwin's publisher -- in March 1791. Later in that
same year, Johnson published a third edition of the complete
Observations. These were followed by subsequent editions
in 1801, 1810, and 1834. Despite the fact
that David Hume (in his
Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 1751), William Godwin
(in Political Justice, 1793, and in the
Enquirer essays, 1797), and to some
extent Mary
Wollstonecraft (in Chapter VI of A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman, 1792)
had refined Hartley's theories, the latter were still readily
available in their original form and were apparently considered
reputable. James Mill, in fact, based his 1829 treatise,
Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, on Hartley's
Observations. Even though nearly seventy years passed
between the writing of the Observations on Man and
Frankenstein, the former was, in the early nineteenth
century, still a respected primary text of associational
(materialist) psychology. Mary Shelley might well have absorbed
some knowledge of Hartleian principles simply by being attentive
to the cultural and intellectual milieu of her times. But I
seriously doubt that, without actually reading Hartley
first-hand, she could have grasped the precise delineation of
certain principles and the exact steps -- in order -- leading to
the formation of the moral sense. One discovers both the
principles and the steps in Frankenstein, with all of
Hartley's ideological eccentricities intact.

What other possible sources of Hartley's work are there? Is
there any other evidence which suggests the provenance by which
Mary Shelley read Hartley? We know that Percy Bysshe Shelley
ordered a copy of the Observations by means of a letter
written in 1812.7 More
importantly, we know that Shelley owned, read, and annotated a
copy of the unabridged 1810 edition of the
Observations.8 It is possible that Mary Shelley
read her husband's copy or that, later on, as Byron and Shelley sat discussing
"various philosophical doctrines" at Villa Diodati, Hartley's were
among those considered.

The fact remains that the narrative focus of the central section
of Frankenstein is on the creature's psychological
development and on his subsequent explanation of how he came to
devote himself to "eternal hatred and vengeance to all
mankind."9
The narration of that account is couched in explicitly Hartleian
terms and accords precisely with the seven-step system of mental
and spiritual development outlined in Hartley's
Observations. While it is comforting to discover that Mary Shelley had access to
a complete edition of Observations, {36} one that was
annotated by Shelley in
the bargain, and that she likely had the opportunity to discuss
it as well, how Mary Shelley came to know this work is
less important than the fact that her novel manifests
unmistakably Hartleian elements -- not Hartley filtered through
Hume or Godwin, but the Hartley of the Observations on
Man.

II

In his Introduction to Volume I of the Observations,10Hartley divides all experience
into two categories: Sensations and Ideas, the latter being
divided into two types -- ideas of sensation (simple) and
intellectual ideas (complex). Hartley states that "all our
internal Feelings seem to be attended with some degree either of
Pleasure or Pain" (p. ii); the pleasures and pains
and their causes he arranges into the following seven general
classes which represent the various levels of man's intellectual
and spiritual development:

Sensation (arising from "the Impressions made on the
external Senses")

Imagination (arising from "Natural or artificial
Beauty or Deformity")

Ambition (arising from "the Opinions of others
concerning us")

Self-interest (arising from "Our Possession or Want
of the Means of Happiness, and Security from, or Subjection to,
the Hazards of Misery")

Sympathy (arising from "the Pleasures and Pains of
our fellow-creatures")

Theopathy (arising from "the Affections excited in us
by the Contemplation of the Deity")

The Moral Sense (arising from "Moral Beauty and
Deformity")

All of the above are fostered by the process of
association which Hartley explains in Props. 10, 33, and
34: "Any Sensations A, B, C, &c. by being associated with
one another a sufficient number of Times, get such a Power over
the corresponding Ideas a, b, c, &c. that any one of the
Sensations A, when impressed alone, shall be able to excite in
the Mind b, c, &c. the Ideas of the rest" (p. 65). Hartley
assumes that pleasurable experience fosters virtuous behavior
and painful experience fosters evil behavior; but he also
assumes that God has
programmed more pleasures than pains into mortal existence and
that most men are therefore destined to become both benevolent
and happy. A significant consequence of these assumptions is
outlined in Prop. 22:

Since God is the Source of all Good, and consequently must at
last appear to be so, i.e. be associated with all our Pleasures,
it seems to follow . . . that the Idea of God, and of
the Ways by which his Goodness and Happiness are made manifest,
must at last, take the place of and absorb all other Ideas, and
He himself become, according to the Language of the Scriptures,
All in All. (p 114)

{37} In short, Hartley's system suggests that pleasure
leads to happiness which leads to benevolence
which leads inexorably to a love of the Creator with whom
we associate all of the foregoing (because all issues
from Him), and thus is developed the mature moral
sense.

The body of Hartleian theories elaborated above figures
prominently in Mary Shelley's novel -- in a quite surprising
number of ways, as we shall see. When the creature meets his
creator -- Victor -- approximately a year after his creation,
the former has already launched himself on a life of crime. The
creature is markedly anti-social; he is filled with anger and
bitter indignation toward mankind, to which he repeatedly refers
as his "enemies." Yet to Victor the creature steadfastly
maintains, "I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and
humanity" (p. 115). And when
he insists that Victor listen to his tale, he does so in the
name of "the virtues that I once possessed" (p. 117). How is one to understand
the creature's loss of virtue and his becoming malicious? Mary
Shelley had the option to use either her father's or, say, Rousseau's anti-societal
theories to explain the creature's loss. But she chose,
instead, to delineate the monster's mental and moral development
in terms of Hartley's complex system of interrelated
physiological and psychological responses.

The creature's first memories are of sensative
experiences. "A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me,"
he says, "and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time"
(p. 118). Like an infant,
the creature has difficulty adjusting his eyes first to the dark
and then to the light. When he flees the laboratory and wanders
through the forest, he experiences heat and cold, hunger and
thirst, fatigue and sleep, fear and pain. Having felt the last
two, he "sat down and wept" (p. 119), another response like that
of a child who, when overcome by a rapid series of confusing and
indefinable sensations, will predictably burst into tears to
express his displeasure and bewilderment. For some time the
creature is unable to distinguish coherently among the various
sensations. "No distinct ideas occupied my mind; all was
confused," he tells Victor (p. 119). But soon he begins to
experience sensory pleasures. He finds the sight of the
moon pleasurable, as well as the sound of birdsong. He
discovers the paradoxical nature of fire -- that it pleasantly
warms and gives light, and yet painfully burns if one comes too
near it.

This period is the creature's mental childhood, although his
enormous physical stature and his mobility put him in contact
with a greater number of sensory experiences than an ordinary
child might encounter. Accordingly, the creature's intellectual
growth is {38} proportionately accelerated; he reaches what
might be called "mental puberty" and young adulthood in one year
rather than in ten or fifteen. Thus the creature tells Victor
that only a few days after his "birth," his "sensations had, by
this time, become distinct," and his "mind recovered every day
additional ideas" (p. 120).
The formation of complex, intellectual ideas is at this point
under way.

His first encounter with humanity occurs when the creature
enters the hut of an old shepherd who, upon seeing him, quickly
flees. The creature's next such encounter becomes disaster when
he is attacked by the villagers and driven from the village.
These two experiences prove valuable, however. Both cause him
to associate mankind with hostile unfriendly behavior; and each
experience suggests to him a prototype of the "family dwelling"
and of what constitutes a minimum norm of comfort and
sustenance. Hence, his first "expectations."

But it is his refuge in the hovel adjacent to the cottage of the
DeLacey family that provides the creature with his most
extensive "schooling." Here, more than anywhere else, his
expectations are shaped by the actions of the DeLaceys, whom he
secretly observes. As the result of their influence upon him,
the creature quickly advances from the intellectually primitive
realm of pure sensation to the higher levels of imagination,
ambition, self-interest, and sympathy.

Significantly, most of his initial experiences there -- both
vicarious and actual -- are pleasurable. The warmth and comfort
of the sparsely furnished cottage accord with the creature's
earlier conceived notions of human habitation, but the behavior
of the kind and loving members of the DeLacey family presents an
entirely new view of human beings acting in harmony with one
another. The creature is intensely moved by the beautiful music
which the old man produces, music which surpasses the beauteous
songs of the woodland birds. The tender affection which the
family members show toward each other -- the smiles and
laughter, and the gentle ministrations of Felix and Agatha to
their father -- impress the creature deeply with "sensations of
a peculiar and overpowering nature: they were a mixture of
pleasure and pain, such as I had never before experienced
. . . and I withdrew from the window, unable to bear
these emotions" (p. 126).
The simple physical beauty of the DeLacey family -- particularly
that of the youthful, melancholy Agatha, as well as the
contrasting youth and age of Felix and his father -- also
pleases the creature as he watches them. Their use of language
he finds extraordinary -- "a godlike science" (p. 130). Later, when he listens to
the family's reading of famous literary texts, he is again moved
to tears.

{39}

III

All of these natural and domestic pleasures foster in the
creature feelings of benevolence and good-will toward the
cottagers; but, more importantly, they develop the creature's
imagination, the second level of mental development in Hartley's scale. In Prop. 94,
Hartley isolates seven specific sources of the pleasures and
pains of the imagination: the beauty of nature; the liberal arts
of music, painting, and poetry; the sciences; the beauty of the
person; wit and humor (all of which yield pleasure); and finally
"gross Absurdity, Inconsistency, or Deformity" (which yield
pain). Nature is the most
valuable source of visual imagery and also serves an important
function in fostering man's spiritual development since it
inspires him to contemplate the Creator who made it all; nature
not only excites but also calms the perceiver, inciting him to
peaceful meditation. Music and Poetry yield intense imaginative
pleasures, but the "Beauty of the Person" -- particularly female
beauty -- is an exceedingly complex pleasure, one which is
decidedly of a "gross, sensual" nature at first, but which with
time passes into (or becomes associated with) "pure Esteem and
Benevolence" (p. 435). Beauty excites desires in the
viewer, said desires increasing "for some time, especially if
the sensible ones are not gratified, and there be also a Mixture
of Hope and Fear, in relation to the Attainment of the
Affections of the beloved Person" (p. 436).

Of equal importance to the creature's development is the fact
that these positive experiences are vicarious and accordingly
underscore the creature's growing sense of loneliness and
isolation. He wishes to be an active participant in human
society, to relish the varieties of beauty and imaginative
stimuli first-hand, not through a chink in the wall of his
hovel. In other words, the pleasures of imagination foster
strong desires in the creature -- a complex that Hartley terms
ambition. "The Opinions of others concerning us, when expressed
by corresponding Words or Actions, are principal Sources of
Happiness or Misery," says Hartley in Prop. 95 (p. 443). We
attempt to garner praise and "avoid Dispraise" by making known
to or concealing from others our possession or want of the
following attributes: "First, External Advantages or
Disadvantages. Secondly, Bodily Perfections and Imperfections.
Thirdly, Intellectual Accomplishments or Defects. Fourthly,
Moral ones; i.e. Virtue or Vice" (p. 444).

In this stage of development, the creature debates the
possibility of joining the society of the DeLacey family.
Remembering his first two experiences with humankind, however,
he decides to observe the DeLaceys until such time as he feels
secure in his understanding of {40} their motivations,
pleasures, and expectations of one another, so that he will not
violate any established codes of proper behavior. Because of
the creature's ambition, he becomes deeply concerned over what
this family will think of him, and accordingly, the next series
of episodes in the novel shows the creature preparing himself
for the moment of his introduction to them. However, along with
ambition comes the possibility of failure and the attendant
pain, such as what the creature experiences when he discovers
his own physical ugliness:

but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a transparent
pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was
indeed I who was reflected in the mirror, and when I became
fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I
was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and
mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal
effects of this miserable deformity. (p. 133)

The contrast between the beauty of the cottagers and his own
deformity, and the anxiety which the creature feels over the
probable response to his ugliness, cause him extreme pain and
foster his obsession with his physical appearance. The
obsesssion makes perfect sense when considered in light of
Hartley's statements about "Bodily Perfections and
Imperfections" -- such as "Beauty, Strength, and Health, on the
one hand; and their Opposites, Deformity, Imbecillity
. . ., and Disease, on the other" (p. 447) -- and
their tendency to foster feelings of honor and shame in an
individual. The most desirable of the "perfections" mentioned
above is beauty, which not only means being
beautiful, but also being thought beautiful by other
human beings. Conversely, to be or to be thought ugly or
"deformed," as Hartley puts it, is tantamount to "Scandal."
Beauty is generally associated with virtue, ugliness with vice;
the human countenance is thus charged with complex physical,
social, and moral implications.11 Fearing that his appearance will
disgust them, and may well cause them to think him vicious, the
creature decides to cultivate other virtues which the DeLaceys
apparently hold in high esteem. He imagines that "by my gentle
demeanour and conciliating words, I should first win their
favour, and afterwards their love" (p. 134). Thus he decides to
improve himself intellectually and to begin by "acquiring the
art of language" (p. 134).

IV

In Props. 12, 21, 79, and 80 of the Observations, Hartley
addresses himself to the formulation of language and the
development of articulate speech. He states that words can be
grouped into four classes: "1. Words which have Ideas, but no
Definitions; 2. Words which have both Ideas and Definitions; 3.
Words which have {41} Definitions but no Ideas; 4. Words which
have neither Ideas nor Definitions" (pp. 77, 277). To the first
class belong "the names of simple sensible Qualities" such as
the words "white" or "sweet," which "excite Ideas; but cannot be
defined" (p. 278). To the second class belong "the Names of
Natural Bodies, animal, vegetable, mineral," which "excite
Aggregates of sensible Ideas, and at the same time may be
defined" (p. 278). To the third class belong "Algebraic
Quantities," which "have Definitions only" (p. 278). And to the
fourth, "the Particles the, of, to,
for, but, &c." which "have neither Definitions
nor Ideas" (p. 279). First, the name of a visible object is
learned; second, the hearing or saying of the word excites a
visible idea; third, the mental picture of the object will
excite an audible idea; fourth, other related sensations will be
impressed into the notion of the visible object. Finally, words
"denoting sensible Qualities, whether Substantive or Adjective,"
and "The Names of visible Actions, as Walking, Striding,
&c. raise the proper visible Ideas by a like Process" (p.
273).

Through association, the saying, hearing, or (later) seeing of a
word can excite whole trains of thought. This rudimentary
process is superseded by the learning, through association, of
more complex verbal conceptions -- such as those words which
pertain to emotions and other abstract qualities.

Hartley also describes the process by which children learn to
speak. An impression of pain on some part of the body first
stimulates the larynx to move (the pain may involve something as
simple as hunger, thirst, coldness, or fear). Shortly, the
child learns by association that making such sounds wins him the
attention of his parents or his nurse, so that pain or pleasure
or any mere sensation becomes less and less responsible for the
involuntary activation of the organs of speech. The sounds made
by the child are for some time inarticulate. By listening to
the articulate sounds of an adult, the child will begin to
imitate simple, articulate sounds until, by degrees, he can
imitate more complex ones. Once the act of speaking becomes a
totally voluntary action, "the Child will be able to utter any
Word or Sentence proposed to him by others, or by himself, from
a mere Exertion of the Will . . ." (p. 107).

Earlier in his narrative, the creature tells Victor of his first
attempts to make sounds: "Sometimes I tried to imitate the
pleasant songs of the birds, but was unable. Sometimes I wished
to express my sensations in my own mode, but the uncouth and
inarticulate sounds which broke from me frightened me into
silence again" (p. 120).
Like a baby, the creature tries to make sounds which express
"sensations," but which are instead merely shocking to the ear.
And since no mother {42} rushes to his side to answer his
"call," the creature, in these first experiences with the
operation of his voice, remains ignorant of the usefulness of
making sounds. His observation of the DeLacey family, however,
provides him vicariously with this knowledge that a child
acquires from the responses of its parents. The creature's
initial difficulty in comprehending the language of the
cottagers arises from the fact that "the words they uttered had
no apparent connection with visible objects" (p. 131); but as he listens and
observes for a lengthy period of time, just as a child would do,
he soon amasses a vocabulary which consists of "the most
familiar objects of discourse" (p. 131), all of which are words
associated with visible objects: "fire,
milk, bread, and wood" (p. 131). Next he learns the names
of the cottagers. More complex and abstract conceptions, "such
as good, dearest, unhappy" (p. 131), he learns later. He
discovers his organs of speech still to be "harsh, but supple;
and although my voice was very unlike the soft music of their
tones, yet I pronounced such words as I understood with
tolerable ease" (pp. 134-35). Thus, with use and
practice, his articulation gradually improves.

At this point in the creature's intellectual and spiritual
development, the pleasures of his existence have indeed
outweighed the pains. In Hartleian terms, this fact accounts
for the benevolence and sympathy which the creature feels toward
the DeLacey family and for the good deeds which he secretly
performs for them. He himself tells Victor: "My spirits were
elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past was
blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil, and the future
gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy" (p. 135). A fresh set of positive
associations has overpowered, if not eradicated, the creature's
earlier, unpleasant experiences with mankind, and virtually all
of his expectations have been shaped by the DeLacey family.

The arrival of Safie at the DeLacey cottage serves inadvertently
to foster the creature's ambition further. He improves his
knowledge of the language by listening attentively to the
lessons which Felix gives Safie. But he learns still other
things which are ultimately painful and unsettling: from Volney'sRuins of Empires he
gains "insight into the manners, governments, and religions of
the different nations of the earth" (p. 140); he learns of man's dual
nature -- "at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet
so vicious and base" (p. 140). From Felix he hears
explained "the strange system of human society. . .,
of the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid
poverty; of rank, descent, and noble blood" (p. 141). He becomes aware that
"the possessions most esteemed by your fellow {43} creatures
were high and unsullied descent united with riches" (p. 141). This knowledge leads him
to several tragic and fateful considerations:

A man might be respected with only one of these advantages; but,
without either, he was considered, except in very rare
instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers
for the profits of the chosen few! And what was I? Of my
creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant; but I knew that
I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was,
besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathesome;
I was not even of the same nature as man . . . When I
looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a
monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, whom
all men disowned? (p. 141)

The creature thus experiences his first sense of shame and
degradation -- i.e. pains of ambition -- as the result of his
newly acquired consciousness of social and monetary distinctions
between men.

We should here remember that once an individual attains the
third level of intellectual development in Hartley's scale --
ambition -- he becomes acutely aware of "External
Advantages or Disadvantages." These Hartley defines as "fine
Cloaths, Riches, Titles, and High-birth, with their Opposite,
Rags, Poverty, Obscurity, and Lowbirth" (p. 444). Pride,
vanity, and honor attend the possession of the former, while
humility, shame, and degradation attend the latter. It is an
ironic truth of society that wealth and fine clothing are most
often associated with virtue, but poverty and rags "are most
often attended with the most loathsome and offensive Ideas, with
bodily Infirmity . . . Contempt, and Vice" (p.
445).

Realizing that in the eyes of society he is not only a lowly,
ignorant being but also an unbearably ugly one, the creature
becomes convinced that his only hope of gaining a station in
human society lies through the mastery of language and the
development of a persuasive tongue. The creature's attitude
toward language and his expectations are interesting,
particularly when we realize that they are but another extension
of his growing ambition. Hartley tells us that a consciousness
of "Intellectual Accomplishments or Defects" is a significant
aspect of this level of psychological growth. Intellectual
accomplishments carry with them the promise of honor,
encouragement, and praise; but ignorance, folly, and dullness
bring shame upon the individual. One profoundly important
accomplishment is the mastery of language, and one of the most
significant human relationships is that forged between the child
and the person (usually a parent) from whom he learns
language.12
Since we generally learn language first from one whom we trust,
we tend to trust likewise in the veracity and the
straightforwardness of words. We come to believe that since the
use of language {43} obtains for us what we wish from our
parents, then it will surely be sufficient means by which to
fulfill our wants and needs or simply to communicate various
ideas to others. Articulateness is thus associated in the mind
with a variety of intellectual pleasures. All of the creature's
hopes and fears stem from his fervent desire for approval by the
DeLacey family which had unknowingly functioned as surrogate
parents to the creature. And it is at this critical stage in
his mental and spiritual development that the scales begin to
tip in favor of painful experiences, rather than
pleasurable ones.

V

This heightened consciousness in the creature shows that he has
attained to the fourth level of intellectual development in
Hartley's scale: self-interest. His new knowledge has
not made him happy, but sad; it has, additionally, fostered
strong feelings of desire in the creature and stimulated
him to achieve happiness by any possible means.

In Prop. 96, Hartley divides self-interest into three types:

First, Gross Self-interest, or the cool Pursuit of the Means
whereby the Pleasures of Sensation, Imagination, and Ambition,
are to be obtained, and their Pains avoided.

Secondly, Refined Self-interest, or a like Pursuit of the Means
that relate to the Pleasures and Pains of Sympathy, Theopathy,
and the Moral Sense.

And, Thirdly, Rational Self-interest, or the Pursuit of a Man's
greatest possible Happiness without any Partiality to this or
that Kind of Happiness, Means of Happiness, Means of a Means,
&c. (p. 458).

The individual starts by seeking the maximum possible happiness
("maximum" here is both a quantitative and and a qualitative
term) through activities involving Sensation, Imagination, and
Ambition (outlined previously), and then progresses to those
involving the "higher" intellectual and spiritual levels of
Sympathy, Theopathy, and the Moral Sense. He seeks out the
"Pleasures of Friendship, Generosity, Devotion and
Self-approbation," not necessarily "from any particular vivid
Love of his Neighbor, or of God, or from a Sense of Duty to him,
but intirely from the View of private Happiness" (p. 464). It
is this very sense of self-interest which underlies many of the
"Pleasures and Duties of Benevolence, Piety, and the Moral
Sense" (p. 464).

By observing the relations within the DeLacey family, and
particularly those between Felix and Safie, the creature comes
to understand precisely what he is missing:

{45} Oh, that I had for ever remained in my native wood, nor
known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and
heat!

Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind,
when it has once seized on it, like a lichen on the rock. I
wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling: but I
learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation
of pain, and that was death -- a state which I feared yet did
not understand. I admired virtue and good feelings, and loved
the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers; but I
was shut out from intercourse with them, except through means
which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and unknown, and
which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of
becoming one among my fellows. The gentle words of Agatha, and
the animated smiles of the charming Arabian, were not for me.
The mild exhortations of the old man, and the lively
conversation of the loved Felix, were not for me. Miserable,
unhappy wretch! (pp. 141-42).

In this one passage alone, the creature recounts for Victor
practically the entire program of his mental development -- from
sensation to imagination to ambition to self-interest. We can
also discern elements of sympathy and benevolence in his
attitude toward the cottagers. But his obsessive,
unfulfilled longing to join their society, to be the
object of their love, and the recipient of the joys attendant
upon the physical beauty of the two women, will -- as Hartley
suggests and Mary Shelley soon shows us -- turn strong desire
into its opposite: aversion.

All of the pleasures, Hartley tells us, generate the passions of
love, while the pains generate the passions of
hatred. Love excited to a certain degree fosters
desire, while hatred fosters aversion. But
Hartley stresses the close relationship of these seemingly
antithetical emotions. In Prop. 89, he states that "We often
desire and pursue things which give Pain rather than Pleasure"
(p. 372); he accounts for this fact by saying that "at first
they afforded Pleasure, and . . . they now give Pain
on account of a Change in our Nature and Circumstances" (p.
372). Having desired something, though, and finding only pain
attending the acquisition of it, a person discovers that "the
Recurrence of Pain will at last render the Object undesirable
and hateful" (p. 372). Moreover,

in the Course of a long Pursuit, so many Fears and
Disappointments, apparent or real, in respect of the subordinate
Means, and so many strong Agitations of Mind passing the Limits
of Pleasure, intervene, as greatly to chequer a State of Desire
with Misery. For these same Reasons States of Aversion are
chequered with Hope and Comfort (p. 372).

During this critical period, the creature's imagination is
further stimulated and his ambition aroused by his reading of Paradise Lost, Plutarch's Lives, and
the Sorrows of
Werther. These works strengthen two of his already
existing ideas: that virtue is associated with pleasure and pain
with vice, and that unlike every other person in the universe,
{46} he "was apparently united by no link to any other being in
existence" (p. 153). He
experiences an enormous shock when he reads Victor's journal and
learns at last all the hideous details of his "accursed origin"
(p. 154). Again and again
the creature castigates himself for being ugly -- and Victor for
making him so. His concern with physical beauty, and his
awareness that human beings likewise respond favorably to beauty
and adversely to deformity, spur on his obsessive desire to
compensate for the pain he feels by becoming involved in the
joys of human society: "to see their sweet looks directed
towards me with affection was the utmost limit of my ambition
. . . . I required kindness and sympathy; but I
did not believe myself utterly unworthy of it" (p. 156).

VI

It is at this point that the creature attains to the
intellectual level of sympathy, as Hartley delineates it. But
here again, he experiences far more pains than pleasures. And
because of the intensity, contiguity, and frequency of these
occurrences, the benevolent and gentle sensibility of the
creature is extirpated. In Prop. 97, Hartley divides the
"Pleasures and Pains of Sympathy" into four classes: "First,
Those by which we rejoice at the Happiness of Others. Secondly,
Those by which we grieve for their Misery. Thirdly, Those by
which we rejoice at their Misery. And, Fourthly, Those by which
we grieve for their Happiness" (p. 471). The first class of
sympathetic affections is experienced when we socialize and
converse with friends and when we exercise good-will or
benevolence; the second consists primarily of feelings of
compassion.

Throughout his narrative, we find numerous examples of the
creature's budding sense of sympathy for the DeLacey
family. He rejoices when they are happy and feels sad when they
are worried. He secretly performs chores for them to lighten
their daily burden of work. In this way he indulges in the
fantasy that he is an active participant in the family circle.
But the fantasy is insufficient to his needs and desires, and he
at last musters his courage and presents himself to M. DeLacey.
The old man proves no disappointment; he warmly and
sympathetically listens to the creature's confused yet obviously
tragic tale. Moreover, he reinforces still other expectations
of the creature: "Do not despair. To be friendless is indeed to
be unfortunate; but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any
obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity.
Rely, therefore, on your hopes; and if these friends are good
and amiable, do not despair" (p. 158). DeLacey {47}
unintentionally raises the poor creature's hopes still further.
Exactly at this tense and passionate moment, Felix and the
others return, confirming the creature's worst fears as Agatha
faints, Safie flees, and Felix undertakes to tear him away from
M. DeLacey.

From this point on, the creature feels only the "pains of
sympathy," as Hartley calls them: those by which we rejoice at
the misery and grieve for the happiness of our fellow men. The
former involve feelings of anger, revenge, jealousy, cruelty,
and malice.13 These feelings spring from the
realization that someone else intends us harm -- either physical
or mental anguish of some sort. The latter pains of sympathy --
those by which we grieve for the happiness of our fellow men --
involve the feelings of "Emulation and Envy" (p. 482). These
spring from the comparison of our own happiness or misery in
terms of "Pleasures, Honors, Riches, [and] Power" (p. 482) with
that of others. The most important of these pleasures, says
Hartley, is the relationship between husband and wife. All of
the pleasures of Sensation, Imagination, and Ambition seem to
culminate in this union. The presence or absence of this
relationship results in the strong feelings -- either
pleasurable or painful ones -- that arise when we compare
ourselves to others in this respect. The powerful bond existing
between parents and children is likewise either a source of
great bliss (if one has a mate and children) or of great envy
(if one has not). Parents, caring for their children tenderly
and attentively from the infants' earliest recollection, inspire
a much desired love and devotion from their offspring.14 All of these
strong feelings arise from our ever increasing need for love,
affection, and acceptance. When we possess these, the faculty
of sympathy is greatly augmented, but lacking these important
human ties, we can expect subsequent development -- toward the
levels of Theopathy and the Moral Sense -- to be grossly
inhibited, if not altogether arrested.

Consumed with envy of the warm human relationships that he can
never enjoy, envy of the tender family circles that he will
never penetrate, and envy of the physical affection he can never
hope to receive, the creature allows his bitter hatred for the
entire race virtually to extinguish all other ideas. In one
swift moment he is betrayed, and he is rudely expelled from the
DeLacey cottage. This occurs despite the creature's mastery of
language, his benevolent (yet self-serving) motives, his good
deeds, and his earnest desire to fraternize with the family.
Contrary to what his associations have conditioned him to
believe, virtue and goodness do not necessarily lead to pleasure
and happiness. The pain suffered as the result of losing
all of these treasured illusions at once induces the
creature to declare "everlasting {48} war against the species,
and, more than all, against him who had formed me, and sent me
forth to this insupportable misery" (p. 162).

Shortly after the creature declares that "The mildness of my
nature had fled, and all within me was turned to gall and
bitterness" (p. 166),
however, he appears ironically enough to be momentarily restored
to tranquillity -- and even happiness -- by the beauties of an
early spring morning. While in this conciliatory frame of mind,
the creature rescues a little girl from drowning, but instead of
being thanked, he is shot by her father, thus giving the
ultimate lie to the creature's repulsed but still living hope
for human community. It is this final example of human
ingratitude and injustice that sets the creature on an
inexorable path of evil and revenge. This one last scene in
which the creature's sympathies are alternately raised and
dashed seems to have been included to demonstrate the Hartleian
notion that benevolence is indeed so natural a result of man's
development, and so deeply rooted in his consciousness, that is
is quite difficult to eradicate. But the point is that it
can be eradicated -- given the requisite amount of pain,
both physical and intellectual, resulting from severe
disappointment, unfulfilled longing, and a deep sense of
isolation from and rejection by one's fellow men.

VII

After a second period of virtual insanity (the first occurring
after his expulsion by the DeLaceys), precipitated by
uncontrolled bouts of rage, the creature vows "eternal hatred
and vengeance to all mankind" (p. 168). And, interestingly, it is
to vengeance against Victor -- his creator -- that he devotes
himself. This, too, illustrates an important Hartleian
principle: Hartley assumes that the numerous pleasures which we
experience will make us happy and engender our benevolence; this
benevolence will lead to "Theopathy" -- a loving awareness of
and respect for our Creator, from whom issue all the pleasures
of life; the Creator thus becomes "All in All" to us, as we are
henceforth guided by a fully developed moral sense. Now this
very process has occurred in the mental and spiritual
development of the creature -- but in a totally perverted
fashion. The creature's pains finally outweigh his
pleasures; these foster unhappiness in him which fills
him with malice; attributing all of his pain and misery
to his creator -- Victor -- he thus comes to
despise, rather than love, his "god." And therefore
Victor becomes the principal target of the creature's rage and
desire for revenge -- his "All in All." The result of this
perverse development is that he willfully commits himself to a
life of evil deeds.

{49} The creature clearly understands the source of his own
wickedness. Repeatedly, when admonishing Victor that he must
create a mate for him, the creature asserts,

I am malicious because I am miserable . . . If I have
no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion;
the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes
. . . My vices are the children of a forced solitude
that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live
in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a
sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and
events from which I am now excluded. (pp. 172, 175-76)

But when the creature realizes that Victor is adamant in his
refusal to give him a mate, his violent passions -- fed by this
supreme disappointment -- are aroused to the most extreme
limits. He arrives at that state of mind which Hartley calls
"pure disinterested Cruelty and Malice" (p. 481), whereby the
anger and desire for revenge are self-proliferating and habitual
and no longer require external stimulation to quicken them.

VIII

The creature's mental and spiritual development thus comes to an
end. He fails to attain to the last two stages in Hartley's
scale -- Theopathy and the Moral Sense -- because, as Mary Shelley shows us, he
meets with more sensative and intellectual pains than pleasures,
and he is denied the reciprocal human relationships so vital to
normal, healthy psychological growth.

Mary Shelley's use of Hartley not only explains the creature's
arrested development; it also affects our understanding of the
underlying ethos of the novel. Her reliance upon Hartley
suggests that Mary Shelley, like her father, subscribed to the
doctrines of mechanistic
determinism and that she was a thoroughgoing empiricist,
convinced of the essential goodness of human nature but equally
certain that early sensative experiences largely determine what
we become as adults. The novel demonstrates that sensative and
intellectual pain -- particularly those resulting from social
ostracism and a loveless environment -- are directly responsible
for the moulding of the doleful or misanthropic personality.
Perhaps the creature was delineated with such compassion because
the author herself was no stranger to this same kind of
suffering.15
The novel can be viewed as an admonishment to all parents, for
it offers what is tantamount to "scientific proof" of the
dangerous consequences which can ensue in the absence of
necessary parental love for and approval of their offspring.

Although Mary Shelley never directly mentions Hartley's work,
the, similarities between the systematic account of spiritual
and {50} psychological development recorded in the
Observations on Man and that which characterizes the
inner life of the creature in her novel are so striking that it
is difficult to believe she was not quite familiar with this
seminal work of sensationist psychology. Her failure ever to
mention Hartley is of course troublesome, and it is possible to
speculate endlessly as to why she did not do so. I confess that
even Percy Shelley's
statement in his Preface to
Frankenstein -- that the work was not intended to advance
"any philosophical doctrine of whatever kind" -- itself begs the
question and arouses my suspicion. I find his remarks similar
in tone to those which have prefaced many other works of
literature (and, nowadays, films), words which assert that the
work is purely fictitious and that the characters "bear no
resemblance to real persons either living or dead," when such is
clearly not the case. I suspect that Shelley made that
statement because the work so patently does advance a
particular philosophical doctrine. Whether Mary Shelley read
Hartley prior to 1814 or during 1816, and whether it
was Godwin's or Shelley's
copy that she read, the evidence of the similarities between the
Observations and Frankenstein suggests that she
possessed a more than casual familiarity with Hartley's work.16

Notes

* I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for
a grant which afforded me the opportunity to continue the
research necessary for the completion of this paper at the State
University of New York at Stony Brook during the summer of
1979. I should also like to express my gratitude to David V
Erdman, W. Paul Elledge, and Donald H. Reiman who read various
drafts of the paper and offered many valuable suggestions; and
to the staff of the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library who allowed me
to examine Percy Shelley's personal copy of the Observations
on Man.

5 The two editions of Hartley are listed as lot
#274 and #275 in the sale catalogue for the auction of Godwin's
personal library. See "Catalogue of the Curious Library of that
very eminent and distinguished author, William Godwin, Esq. to
which are added, The Very Interesting and Original Autograph
Manuscripts of His Highly Esteemed Publications. Which will be
sold by auction, by Mr. Sotheby and Sons, Wellington Street,
Strand, On Friday, June 17, 1836, and following Day at Twelve
O'Clock" in Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent
Persons, VIII, ed. Seamus Deane (Mansell: Sotheby Parke
Bernet Publications, 1973).

6Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and
Its Influence on Morals and Happiness, III (Toronto: Univ.
of Toronto Press, 1946), 11.

7The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley as
comprised in The Life of Shelley by Thomas Jefferson Hogg, The
Recollections of Shelley and Byron by Edward John Trelawny,
Memoirs of Shelley by Thomas Love Peacock, introd. Humbert
Wolfe (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd, 1933), p. 357.

8 Shelley's copy of the Observations on
Man is in the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library.

9 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or The Modern
Prometheus, ed. James Rieger (New York: Pocket Books,
1976). All subsequent references allude to this edition and
will be cited parenthetically within the text.

10 All references are to the facsimile edition
of Hartley's 1749 work, with an introduction by Theodore L.
Huguelet (Delmar, N. Y.: Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints
1976), and will hereafter be cited parenthetically within the
text.

Beauty has an intimate Connexion with one of the most violent of
our Desires; affords a great Pleasure, even when this Desire is
not felt explicitly; has the highest Encomiums bestowed upon it
in Books . . ., and the highest Compliments paid to it
in Discourse; and is often the Occasion of Success in Life.
. . . No Wonder therefore, that both Sexes
. . . should desire both to be and be
thought beautiful, and be pleased with all the associated
Circumstances of these Things; and that the Fear of being
or being thought deformed, should be a Thing to which the
Imagination has the greatest Reluctance. And the Reputation of
Beauty, with the Scandal of Deformity, influences so much the
more, as Beauty and Deformity are not attended with their
respective pleasing or displeasing Associates, except when they
are made apparent to, and taken notice of, by the World. (p.
447)

. . . the Words and Phrases of the Parents, Governors,
Supervisors, and Attendants, have so great an Influence over
Children, when they first come to the use of Language, as
instantly to generate an implicit Belief, a strong Desire, or a
high Degree of Pleasure. They have no Suspicions, Jealousies,
Memories, or Expectations of being deceived or disappointed; and
therefore a Set of Words expressing Pleasures of any Kind, which
they have experienced. put together in almost any manner, will
raise up in them a pleasurable State, and opposite Words a
Painful one. (p. 450)

13 Anger, Hartley says, is a "sudden Start of
Passion," while cruelty is "a more settled Habit of Mind,
disposing Men to take a Delight in inflicting Misery and
Punishment, and in satiating their Thirst after these, by
beholding the Tortures and Anguish of the Sufferers" (p.
478).

14 We should recall that the creature tells
Victor about learning this very lesson from Felix's
conversations with Safie:

I heard of the difference of sexes; and the birth and growth of
children; how the father dotes on the smiles of the infant, and
the lively sallies of the older children; how all the life and
cares of the mother were wrapped up in the precious charge;
. . . of brother, sister, and all the various
relationships which bind one human being to another in mutual
bonds. (p. 142)

15 Of the several psychoanalytical readings of
this novel, two particularly support this conclusion: Marc A. Rubenstein's "'My Accursed
Origin': The Search for the Mother in Frankenstein" (see
note 1 above), which suggests that Mary
Shelley's strong feelings of abandonment by her mother and her
confusion as to the consequences of giving birth influenced the
narrative structure and theme of the novel; and Douglas Bond's
analysis in Psychiatric Annals (December 1973) which
considers Mary's stressful relationship with her very cold
father, William Godwin.

16 This paper is by no means an exhaustive
study of the Hartleian elements at work in Frankenstein,
since my concern has been only with the psychological
development of the creature. Another important mental odyssey
is traced in the novel as well: that of Victor Frankenstein,
whose childhood experiences are also described in terms of the
process of the association of ideas and of his progress through
the various levels of Sensation, Imagination, Ambition,
Self-lnterest, and Sympathy. Like that of his creature (who, it
has been often remarked, functions as the alter-ego of his
creator), Victor's moral progress is also arrested before he
attains to Theopathy and the Moral Sense because of the nature
of his particular obsession. (In this respect, the
character of Victor bears comparison with several characters in
Godwin's Caleb Williams.) A brief section of Mary Poovey's "My Hideous Progeny: Mary
Shelley and the Feminization of Romanticism" (see note 2 above) addresses itself to the key events
in Victor's youth which shape his expectations and behavior. But
Poovey discusses them as essentially "Lockean" in depiction, although
she concedes that Mary Shelley might also have been "answering,
among others, William Godwin and David Hartley" (p. 346, n. 6).